Borne
by tectrices
Summary: //Written for the CFAK 08 Oct. Challenge// Jayne is stuck baby-sitting River after a bad nightmare. They finally start to understand and accept one another, but they agree to go back to the way things were. Until the next nightmare, that is.


**Title:** Borne  
**Author:** ILB (an_ardent_rain)  
**Rated:** G/possibly PG  
**Disclaimer:** Not mine!

**Author's notes:** This was written in October of '08 - I'm finally going through my LJ and posting all my old fic here. This is just a quick little character study; I hope everyone enjoys! I'm so flattered - this story was nominated for the 2008 Pretty Deadly Awards in the category of Pre-Rayne! Anyway, enough of that (I'm just so proud!) - like I said, enjoy!

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**_Borne_**

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"No!" she screamed, kicking at the large mass in front of her. He had her arms, holding her wrists hard enough to bruise. "They'll come - they'll come! Know you don't care, know you want her gone... Won't be able... Can't fight it! No!" She screamed again, and it tore from her throat, sick and strong, assaulting the air around them with a dark and terrible sound.

He didn't respond and unable to hold back any further, she began to cry.

"Stop it," he said, his voice weary. "Ain't no one comin' for you." He let go of her arms and grabbed an ankle, pulling her toward him forcefully.

She whimpered but didn't fight, just let him pull. The skirt of her pale blue dress was pushed up to her thighs, nearly showing the white, scratchy underwear she had on, and one small, sane part of her felt shame that he could see so much of her, that he would demean her even further by exposing her so.

"Now you're gonna get your skinny ass into your room, you're gonna take your meds an' then - "

"No! No medication." She pulled away from him, smoothing her skirt down as she scrambled to her feet. "Not qualified to dispense, will only hurt. Your medicine is murder! Will not - "

"Gorrammit, girl, shut your ruttin' mouth!" He glared and she saw his hand twitch. His fingers were aching to be around her neck, she was sure. "It's meds your brother had got out for you 'fore he left! An' it's just a pill so I don't even have to give it to you; you can ruttin' take it yourself."

She shifted her weight from foot to foot nervously, watching him with cool, unblinking eyes. Her tears had stopped, but she still wasn't calm. The nightmare - whatever it had been, she couldn't remember - still had her brain functioning at a heightened level; everything seemed like a threat, and the pulsing, angry mass of Jayne's mind loomed over her like a tangible cloud. She could feel his hatred. She could feel his _everything_.

"Why?" she asked him, trembling a little as his eyes bore down on her.

"Why what? Why you gotta take your meds? Well, you so-called _genius_, I ain't real keen on havin' to deal with you all - "

"No." She shook her head, shook it hard, letting the ends of her hair brush against her arms. It gave her some measure of comfort, helped her remember she was real. "_Why_? Why did they choose the girl? Why did they let her live after they hurt her? Why can't she get any better?"

Her words discomfited him, she could tell, and his confusion, heavy and bitter, made her whimper in pain.

"I... Look, I don't know none o' that, moonbrain, an' I don't care. You're crazy, so just learn to... t'deal with it." He scratched his head and glared down at the floor. She felt a little lighter with his attention elsewhere.

"No one else can deal with it. They all watch her, want her gone. She'll hurt someone; she'll hurt herself." She squeezed her eyes shut and clenched her hands into fists. Things were swirling around her brain, whizzing like ships through nebulous space. She couldn't pin anything down, and it was getting harder to tell her own feelings from Jayne's. "Hate," she said softly. "You feel it. You hate me." She opened her eyes slowly and stared at him. Then she blinked, and he took a half-step back. "When I am around you... I hate me, too."

"Can't..." He swallowed, and she felt her mental forest clear. Though his thoughts were more jumbled, he could not pierce her mind with sharp, focused feeling. She grappled for something that she knew was her own. "Now I don't like you, that ain't hard to see. But..." His confusion was giving way to anger and soon he'd return to his belief in the futility of conversation with her.

"I do not care if you hate me."

He scowled. He was by nature contradictory and did not like to be told how to feel. "I ain't finished! I said I don't like you an' that's true - but maybe I don't _hate_ you. Weren't your fault they... got your brain humped. Hell, ain't even your fault you got all them genius parts. I only hate havin' to watch you, or havin' to deal with you when you have one o' your gorram fits."

"Bad dream," she told him, knotting her hands together in something close to desperation. "Pictures fly in and they will not leave. Sensitizes, brings forward things meant to be locked away. Cannot remember why it hurts, but still must feel all the pain."

"Well you don't haveta sleep, but you're gettin' in bed."

"Yes." She nodded, calming as the threat he posed lessened. He would not harm her physically, not after seeing her so vulnerable - not unless she harmed him first. She put her arms out, palms up. "I will take my shackles - lead her to the holding cell."

"Gorram moonbrain," he muttered, walking towards her. He had nothing to snap on her wrists, but, still scowling, he put large, capable hands around them gently. She shivered as he touched the inner part of her wrists, thumbs sliding across skin where thin blue veins showed through. "Ain't a cell," he told her, letting her arms drop from his hands. She swung them on either side of her.

"But you are still my jailor."

He grunted, brushing off her words. They meant nothing to him, anyway, and she stared at the tip of his ear as he stood there surveying her. He had large ears - large like the rest of him - and she wondered why, with vessels so large, he couldn't take in all that she was saying.

"C'mon," he said, gesturing towards himself. She looked at him quizzically, able to sense nothing but self-consciousness and something saltier than guilt around him. When he didn't get the reaction he desired, he rolled his eyes and scooped her up into his arms.

She squawked a little as her long limbs flailed around her. He put her over his shoulder, but, after a moment of her wriggling, he pulled her down and hooked one arm under her knees and one across her back. "I am flying," she said fretfully, swinging her feet. "Cannot feel, cannot..."

"Bi zui," he snapped, though not unkindly. "I..." He grunted and started walking. She grabbed a handful of his shirt to hold on to. She had never really been carried before, and it was frightening, so far from the ground, but it felt nice. He was so solid, thick with muscle. She closed her eyes and listened to his heartbeat, following the flow of blood to all parts of his body. It was calming. Her mind reached out a little further, following the stretch and contraction of muscle. "Hey."

She opened her eyes and saw him staring down at her. "Hello."

"Don't you go fallin' asleep or nothin'. I'm takin' you t'where you belong. Only carryin' you 'cause I feel... Well, shouldn't 'a' roughed you up."

"Dragged me," she said petulantly, pinching his arm. He only growled and squeezed her a little tighter in retaliation. "Skirt too high. Would have killed you with my brain if you had seen my underthings."

Jayne laughed and it rumbled through him - all the way through her, too.

"Here." He stepped into the passenger dorm she slept in and dumped her unceremoniously onto her bed. She bounced a little, sinking back into her thin mattress and soft blanket. It was much different from the hard wall of Jayne she'd been against a moment earlier. "Now take your pills an' don't bother me no more."

Her thoughts were settling, slowing down as they whirled around her brainpan. "You have borne her up over the waves. Man-called-Jayne." She took the two blue pills sitting on her nightstand and swallowed them. "Until the next nightmare."

He turned towards her at the doorway. For a moment their eyes locked and he nodded, agreeing to the temporary alliance. "Yeah," he said thickly. "Til th'next nightmare."

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Thanks for reading! And for anyone following "Evolution" chapter six has just been posted!


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